EXTRAORDINARY STATEMENTS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8103, 7 May 1906, Page 4

EXTRAORDINARY STATEMENTS

NEW ZEALAND" ATTACKED IN AMERICAN CONGRESS. An extraordinary attack on New was made by Senator J. C. Sibley, of Pennsylvania, in the American Congress'on February Ist. To New Zealanders the statements may seem rather humorous, but it is probable that they will be accepted as the truth by some Americans. The Senator's idea, apparently, was to serve the American railway companies by throwing discredit on the New Zealand State-owned railways. " New Zealand many years ago," lie said, " perhaps under conditions similar to those confronting us, thought there should be given to a political commission power to establish rates for t'lii-wtationin that country. The right «as granted, but then it proved but the one spark of lire that lighted the whole train that followed. From the commission given the authority to establish rates there came every sort of abuse in that country, and protests of the patrons and the people until in New Zealand they purchased the railways. And upon that purchase followed disaster; or it may be that it was the evolution of things. It is aernr ling to how far a man has become imbwd with socialistic virus.

" One of the main adjuncts to great political power is the authority to control the railways of the nation and its employees. The men or party having that power would be ambitious, and, seeing their opportunity to \ protect themselves thruugu years to come, they failed not to take advantage of their oppu; i mity. They then passed a law making it compulsory upon the Government of HtK Zealand to find employment for all unemployed labour; to establish Governmental banks, and decreed that any man, however iud 1 ' gent, could borrow at least oOdol from the Government; to declare for old age pensions, and indigent pensions to be given, not unier the operation of any universal law, but by a commission appointed by the Prime Minister, and I am confident that these appointments went where they would do the most good politically. (Laughter). Then, to throw a sop to the farmers they decreed that whenever any twelve farmers petitioned for a creamery or a butter factory, it should be established, if the cost was not exceeding SUOOdol "And when there came to the Prime Minister the people protesting that under their progressive l.md tax and 'heir progressive income tax they were b'eing denuded of all tluir possessions, the Prime Minister, Mr Seddon, said, n answer to them, these words: ' That is the object of this legislation—that there shall remain in all New Zealand neither a rich man nor a poor man.' So the forces have swept on until they are in the throes of State socialism, and they are going to make a glorious success of it just as long as there remains in pockets of thrift and energy one dollar,to be wrung out in the form of taxation. Then there comes, as the sequence to the socialistic state, the state of anarchy, and then the reign of terror, and then the swing of the penduium to the other side, and the strong man on horseback. In all human history that has been the experience, and society has been forced to rebuild ils shattered superstructure »|vm tlune foundations which guarantee the rights of persons and of property."